


I'm Glad You Can Laugh

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-27
Updated: 2009-08-27
Packaged: 2019-01-19 21:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12418620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Sometimes, on the other side of grief and shock and terror, the most remarkable thing happens: you find you can laugh as if none of it had ever happened.  You can laugh and love as if the world would ever be right again.





	I'm Glad You Can Laugh

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**The Emotional Range of a Teaspon**

 

* * *

 

 

“You!” Ginny shouted as the door opened with a crash.  She was pointing her finger at Ron accusingly.  Her fiery hair streamed back behind her, still catching up with her even after she slid to a stop after her sprint up the stairs.  All three of the trio had jumped and whirled to look at her, fire in her eyes and her stance aggressive as if she were still in the midst of a battle.  Harry was struggling valiantly not to gape.  Both he and Hermione were very glad that her angry eyes were not fixed on them.  “Go show yourself to Mum alive _immediately!_ ”  She redirected her finger out of the door.

Ron sprang up to obey her, barely noticing how his hand had intertwined with Hermione’s until he jerked her along with him as he stood up.  She started mildly berating him for being a brute as she hurried along down the spiral staircase with him.

Once they had passed the spot where Ginny stood, she turned her gaze to the ground, instantly losing the power with which she had entered the alcove in which Harry, Ron and Hermione had hidden themselves away with the old Headmasters of Hogwarts.  After a moment, she glanced up at Harry, her eyes full of too many emotions to count.

Despite everything else that should have been consuming his consciousness, Harry instead remembered Ron’s reaction to Hermione’s description of what Cho was feeling ages ago, “One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.”  He laughed, practically hearing Hermione’s retort, “Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have…”

Ginny might have given very much at that moment to have the emotional range of a teaspoon, and Harry had the feeling that he had just added, “Confused by non-boyfriend’s bizarre amusement at non-girlfriend’s obvious distress,” to the hefty list of emotions fighting for supremacy inside of Ginny Weasley at that moment.

“Sorry,” he muttered.  “It-it reminded me of something funny those two once said during an argument…”  Harry shrugged lamely, hating the way his voice sounded and the words coming out of his mouth.

“I’m glad you can laugh,” Ginny said, sincerely but solemnly, offering a slight smile.  “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Likewise,” Harry said and hated himself for it a moment later.  Really?  That was the best he could do?  From what deranged part of his admittedly somewhat addled mind had he pulled that ridiculous word?

Her eyes snapped up and the fire of anger was back in them as she regarded him.  “Your dead body is never to be something I’m forced to see again, do you understand?” she told him fiercely, positively glaring as he struggled to meet her eyes.

“It was the only way out of the midst of the Death Eater circle…” he tried to defend himself.

“Which you never should have walked into in the first place!” Ginny shouted at him.  “Heaven and earth, Harry!  What the hell were you thinking?  Here we all are, fighting and dying to give you the chance to destroy Voldemort and you just walk right into him?  When he’s reinforced by _every single one_ of his minions?  When he set the perfect trap for you?  Did you _want_ to die?”

“Well, you see, the thing about that is –“

“HARRY POTTER!” Ginny roared over him.  “Don’t you think we’ve suffered enough?”

“That was kind of the point-“

“Always running off to be the hero before you have anything planned out!  That flew when you had Dumbledore to plan for you, but now you need to have a damned head on your shoulders!  How could you do that to all of us?  Crush the hope right out of us like that – don’t you know what you mean to everyone?  The movement?  To _me?_   Of course you do, the bloody Battle of Hogwarts was fought _because of you!_ ”

“That’s why I had to – “

“No!” Ginny screamed.  “You didn’t!  You never _have to_ , Harry!  You just always do!  It’s what I love about you but _damn it, Harry_ , don’t you ever do that to me again!”

“Okay, okay, don’t hurt yourself!” Harry finally cut her off, feeling immensely harassed.  “It’s all over now at any rate.  And don’t you at least want to hear my side of it?”

Ginny sighed and sagged again.   “Not now, Harry,” she whispered.

“Good, I’m not sure if I’m up to it either,” Harry sighed, sitting back down on the chair he had vacated at her entrance.  He breathed out heavily as he held his head in his hands for a moment, just to avoid the effort of holding it up any longer.

He heard Ginny’s footsteps and looked up at her.  She was standing right in front of him, meeting his weary gaze with hers for a long moment.  Then she seemed to cave in on herself, and Harry stood to catch her just as she dissolved into sobs.

A moment later, she was cradled on his lap and sobbing into his shirt as he held her tightly, allowing tears to flow into her hair from his eyes.

After an eternity, she quieted.  They sat still for a moment just as they had been.

Then Harry burst out, “Bellatrix bloody Lestrange?”

Ginny looked up at him, shocked by his outburst.  From inches away this time, his almost angry eyes bored into hers, heedless for the moment that she looked heartbreakingly fragile.  “What the hell, Ginny?  Of all the nutters – all the opponents you had to choose from in that Battle you go for the madwoman who could probably have taken half the Auror department without breaking a sweat?  Why can’t you ever stay somewhere safe?”  He shook her slightly.  “What would happen to your mother if you had been killed?  Your father?  All of your brothers?  Me?  Hasn’t your family already lost enough?”

Of all the possible reactions Ginny should have had to this, she could only laugh.  She wasn’t even sure at what, but she suspected it was the mutual hypocrisy of the non-couple.  Harry tried to glare her down, but soon found that he too was laughing at who knew what.

“I’m glad you can laugh,” he said roughly, pulling her into a tighter hug, still draped across his lap.

“They’re all asking for you downstairs,” Ginny murmured in his ear.  Harry wanted little more than to continue stroking her hair until he found a way to close his eyes and rest for the first time in ages, to rest as he had never been able to rest before.

“But somehow only you knew where to find us,” he said softly.  She pulled away and faced him, mere centimetres away from his face.

“Are you done running from me then, Potter?”

Partially in answer and partially to end the almost physically painful not-quite closeness, Harry kissed her.  Rediscovering Ginny’s lips and mouth was even more amazing that discovering her for the first time, because it was truly like coming home.  It was absolute tosh to say that you could feel that way the first time that you kissed someone.  However, when you knew the feel of a person’s kiss well, had remembered vividly earlier, pioneering explorations through a long time apart, you could truly be said to be coming home when you returned to the place you knew well, the place and person that once again belonged to you.  And like any home you have left for a time, there were small changes, chapped lips and hollowed out cheeks from hunger in her stay in the Room of Requirement, and tears running down her face.  Her hair was longer and almost wild despite or because of his numerous smoothings over the hours or days they had spent in this room.  She tasted of salt and sweat more than even after a Quidditch Match.  But she was still his Ginny, and he knew the flick of her tongue across his lips, the shape of her teeth, the insistent press of her lips against his and the warm, rich taste of her skin.

As he lingered on her neck, she suddenly gave a loud laugh that startled him out of his absorbing occupation.  He looked up in confusion, tired heart warmed to see the light and amusement that had flooded her face.  She smirked at him, “Sorry, Harry, I just feel compelled to point out that since Mum will be giving all of her kids a thorough inspection of injuries…it’s really not the best time for you to be giving me a hickey.”  She laughed again, and now he joined her.  They laughed until their sides hurt, far more than the joke or the situation warranted.

After a moment of silence, he gently turned her chin and kissed her on the mouth again.  This was shorter kiss, but afterwards they were able to smile shakily.

With a tremendous sigh, Harry said, “I suppose we should go down then?  So your Mum can commence that body search?  I don’t suppose I’m invited to that…”

Ginny laughed, again far more than the joke required.  “I don’t suppose,” she muttered, unwinding her legs and arms and somehow finding the floor with her feet.  She leaned heavily on him as she stood, and even so she wobbled slightly.

“Ha, I always knew I made you go weak at the knees,” Harry quipped.  He staggered slightly as he stood too, however. 

“I suppose the feeling’s mutual at last,” Ginny said dryly.  “Do you think we’re the first people ever to snog in the Headmaster’s office?” she almost giggled a moment later.

“Not by a long shot, unfortunately,” Dilys Derwent said from her portrait.  “Your parents, both sets, seemed to find calls to this office particularly…inspiring, actually.”  They both exchanged glances, wondering how they could have completely forgotten the presence of their audience, and laughed slightly.  Harry gulped.

After the first step they took toward the door, Ginny snatched his hand and clutched at it.  She turned to him with frightened eyes for a moment.  “Don’t let go,” was all that she said.  She didn’t even see Harry nod, but immediately faced forward again, and they started the long walk down into the wizarding world in throes of grief and celebration.

“We all know how Remus felt, I suppose,” Harry muttered a few corridors along.  “The First War’s end was more contained, wasn’t it?”

“What’s going to happen to George, Harry?” Ginny whispered.

“This may shock you, Ginny, but I don’t have a lot of answers,” Harry replied.  “But as for Fred, well, Sirius, Remus and my parents speak very highly of what comes beyond death, if it helps.”

“What?” Ginny cried, turning to face him.

Before he could open his mouth, however, she stopped him.  “No, on second thought, don’t explain just now.  My brain might explode.”

Harry couldn’t help it.  Despite all the emotions running through him, all he could do was howl at her unknowing reference to Ron and Hermione’s argument – the very one that had made him chuckle hours or days ago in the Headmaster’s office.

“Glad it amuses you, Harry,” she said sarcastically, shaking her head at him and walking forward.  If she were annoyed with him, it did not cause her to lessen her grip on his hand.

“I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Likewise.”


End file.
